Coming Up This Weekend: How to Avoid Infodumps and WTF Do I Do Now?

At least, those are my mental tags for the two classes. The first is Description and Delivering Information, and it’s how to get what you need on the page while avoiding big clumps of information and as-you-know-Bob that make a reader stumble and fall right out of the story.

The second is Moving From Idea to Finished Draft and I will be curious to see what all the work I’ve been doing on the on-demand version will end up doing as far as enriching the class goes. In the class, I talk about all the different possible ways a story can start to form in your head (like a scene, a character, a concept, a form, etc), and strategies for how to flesh each of them out and make them into complete stories. The on-demand version is currently at 11k words and I think it’ll be closer to 20-25k when it’s done, but I’m learning huge amounts in the process of writing because it’s making me sort out a lot of thoughts in an organized fashion.

In other updates, I just added the We Are All SF! convention in Ocean Shores in November to my 2016 roster (ugh, I need to update that page). I also believe that in the weird way of magazines, I should be seeing the March issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction with my story “Red in Tooth and Cog” in it, which still makes me squee and explode in interior confetti.

Related Posts:

About Cat

Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches by the shores of an eagle-haunted lake in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov's, Clarkesworld Magazine, and the magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Her story, "Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain," from her collection Near + Far (Hydra House Books), was a 2012 Nebula nominee. Her editorship of Fantasy Magazine earned her a World Fantasy Award nomination in 2012. She is the current President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). She is currently working on Exiles of Tabat, the third book of the Tabat Quartet. A new story collection, Neither Here Nor There, appears from Hydra House this fall.

Get Fiction in Your Mailbox Each Month

Want two installments of serial novella BABY DRIVER, available only through subscription, in your mail each month, along with access to a lively community of writers and readers, free classes, co-working sessions, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.

Want to get some new fiction? Support my Patreon campaign.

This site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Related Posts:

No Related Posts

Want to Support Cat? Buy Some Books!

Twenty fantasy stories of our world and others. Publisher's Weekly called them 'crisp and compelling'.

"If you want some really excellent stories, get the e-book. If you also want a physical object to warm the heart of any print-book collector, go for the paper version." Don Sakers, Asimov's

Cat's first nonfiction book talks about how to set up and maintain an online presence -- without cutting into your writing time.

Clockwork Fairies, a steampunk short story, originally appeared on Tor.com.